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| Kwagu'ł into the Mist |
Jane married Harry Tennyson Cadwallader (1874-1932). Together, they had three daughters, Francis, Edna Leonora, and Annie Beatrice; and four sons, Clarence Chester (Nick), Walter, Calvin, Robert Stephen Eugene and William Isaac.
Their son William Isaac married Bernice Crystal Spencer. It was their son George Allan (Dusty) Cadwallader who inherited the blanket and eventually donated it to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The Chilkat has taken a new name as MOA ID Number: A17007. It was last danced at the Isaac Family Potlach in Alert Bay, 'Ya̱lis, in May 2018 & will be danced again. I got to spend some time with the Chilkat to do studies this past year. This piece is the result.
The mist is the unknown, the veils that lift as we take our steps forward. The figure you see is at once my Grandma Betty and also Jane Charity.
It is an invitation to walk with our ancestors, hi'helus, into a future of possibility.
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| Anisalaga, The All-Mother |
She belonged to the Raven/Yéil phratry of the Gigalgam Kyinanuk Tlingit of Tongass. Anisalaga is the blood that binds all the Hunts, Hendersons and more than 1,200 cousins on the West Coast of British Columbia.
Anisalaga was a descendant of the Head-Chief of Wrangell (Anisalaga's father's father) and Chief Shaawatshook'u Eesh Keishíshk' Shakes IV (her mother's father), whose wife was S’eitlin II, a Deisheetaan of the Raven moiety whose principal crest is the Beaver/S'igeidí, Gaanax.ádi Drifted Ashore House, Xutsnoowú (a.k.a. Xudzidaa) Ḵwáan, Brown Bear Fort (Burnt Wood Tribe) of the Hootchenoo from Aangóon which roughly translates in Łingít to "isthmus town" of Admiralty Island, Lingit Anni, Alaska.
Anisalaga's mother was Aanseet, Chief-of-All-Women, Drifted Ashore House and Chief Ebbets Andáa Neakoot/Nenkoot, Teikweidi Shaanax Hit, Valley House, Taanta Kwaan, was her father.
The Chief Ebbets Pole (the Dogfish Kootéeyaa Pole) was erected in 1892 in Old Tongass Village for her father then moved, re-carved and re-painted at Saxman Totem Park in 1938. An RFP went out in early 2022 to have this pole re-carved.
Anisalaga's mother, Aanseet drowned on the Nass River in 1870. Two memorial poles were raised in her honour — one in Old Tongass Village, Alaska, Princess-Shining-Copper (that was stolen and taken to Seattle to stand in Pioneer Square) and one in Tsaxis, Fort Rupert, raised by Anisalaga to overlook Beaver Harbour.
I grew up a few hundred feet away, just up the hill and less than 20 steps from Anisalaga's grave. My father (through whom I get my Tlingit Kwakiutl blood) moved my Norwegian mother here when they left the float camps up the coast. I lived in Fort Rupert and later moved to M&B subdivision in Port Hardy. My strongest memories from childhood are playing on the beach and hillside with my sister—walking in our ancestor's footsteps.
Anisalaga's childhood would have been much harder. She had five siblings, Yaashút' (her brother who died in 1876), her sister Gaachnéin married Kucheesh III, her sister Abbie (Atk'géigee) married W. H. Bond, her brother Keenanúk married Xanséek and her sister Kéilsháawat married Xaashgáaksh II.
At the time of her birth in 1823, life was very different in Tongass, Lingit Anni, now Alaska. The Russians still controlled much of the coast and had not yet negotiated its sale to the USA.
Anisalaga was a skilled weaver from a long line of Chilkat master weavers — some originally Tsimshian of Wrangel now family through marriage. When she was fourteen, she was put in seclusion according to Lingit tradition. A painter was engaged to create a Naaxein pattern board behind where she worked. A female elder described the figures as Anisalaga wove them into her own Naaxein/naaxiin.
They might be a Raven/Yéil with a pronounced beak, paired on each side, the Killer Whale/Dakl'aweidi/Kéet underneath and a Grizzly-Bear/Xóots in the centre with faces of other bears to illustrate the Bear Mother story or include other designs — but always with a central family crest figure showcased for when the robe was danced.
She was taught to prepare all of the materials for weaving — gathering cedar bark, gathering and dyeing of mountain goat wool with bark, lignite, wolf moss Evernia vulpina and copper.
Over the years, she grew famous for her Chilkat weavings — an art the evokes the smell of smoke, the beating of the drum, the shared singsong voices of the Winter dances. She guarded her Chilkat learnings closely but shared with family. She worked in yellow, turquoise, black and white — including an abstract design in the bottom corner that is her kwéiy/signature.
Her Chilkat weaving, now famous, were photographed by Edward Curtis and Franz Boas, the father of ethnography, who worked with her and her children, particularly her first son George Hunt.
Anisalaga married Robert Hunt at Fort Simpson at Lax-Kw'alaams on the Nass River. They lived in the north then relocated to Fort Rupert where they had eleven children — seven daughters and four sons. Mary wove a Naaxein Chilkat blanket for each of their children. Their second son, William, married Annie Wilson, Kwakiutl, Smoke of the World, and together they had (Robert) Vivian Hunt, my great grandfather. The Chilkat you see my grandmother Betty dancing comes from William to Vivian to her. It's sister blanket woven for Jane Charity is held in collections at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.
Anisalaga brought Tlingit songs, stories and the Chilkat weaving tradition from the north to the coast. Through the Ravens of Tongass, her marriage and move to Fort Rupert she brought Kyinanuk totem pole carving traditions to both Tsaxis, Fort Rupert and Namgis First Nation cousins in Alert Bay — influencing the use of the Thunderbird, the Raven, the Sun, Ts'o'noqoa, Sisiutl and Sea Lion.
A replica of Anisalaga's (du tláa/abas) mother's Princess-Shining-Copper Tongass Kootéeyaa
pole — erected on her mother's grave at Tongass, Lingit Anni, now southern Alaska — was raised in Tsaxis, Fort Rupert as a visual symbol that the Hunt family equally honoured both Tlingit and Kwakwaka'wakw. North and South had found their peace.
The Hunts you meet on the west coast are her descendants and my family. In 1992, Uncle Hutch Hunt, Auntie Gloria, Uncle Bill Hunt, Irene Hayman, cousins Lily Alfred, Leslie Hunt, Corrine Hunt along with Wayne Alfred Hunt & William Wasden went to Ketchikan to visit Chief Shakes IX, Jonathan DeWitt (Uncle Cookie), younger brother of Charlie DeWitt. They enjoyed a feast at the home of Forestt DeWitt.
Many potlatches/ku.éex' have been held to gather the descendants of Anisalaga & Robert Hunt — now more than 1,200 hundred strong. Our beautiful cousins from the north, including Chris Makua and J.K. Samuels and his sister Louise, joined us for those feasts. We held a potlatch and pole raising in 2013 in Tsaxis, Fort Rupert to honour Anisalaga, our All-Mother.
